Accountability
by lionesseyes13
Summary: Watching a detention with the Carrows, Snape considers the duty he owes to Hogwarts students, to Dumbledore, and to Lily.


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Accountability

Snape attended the detentions that the Carrows handed out to any of the students not in Slytherin like Muggle kindergarten teachers handed out candy. He went because he had to go to provide the Carrows with the illusion that he supported them wholeheartedly, even though the way they tortured children appalled even him, because, even after his father's abuse, he wasn't entirely heartless like the Carrows.

Seeing Longbottom, the Weasley Girl, Loony Lovegood, and several students who had been caught writing seditious messages on the castle walls last evening howl and writhe on the floor nauseated him, and he was grateful that he had perfected the art of keeping his mind and face blank, although neither of the Carrows had the intelligence it required to be a Leglimens, of course. The Carrows and the Dark Lord could never find out how torturing students like this disgusted him. After all, as Dumbledore would say if he were alive and if he hadn't forced Snape into killing him, Snape had to remain here, where he could offer the pupils of Hogwarts what faint protection he could against the Carrows' brutality. Thinking of Dumbledore made Snape's blood boil, though, since if it weren't for Dumbledore deciding to die, the students wouldn't need Snape to go to such revolting measures to shield them, and so it was really best not to contemplate Dumbledore…

"Say yer sorry for writin' messages on the walls, boy," Amycus snarled at Longbottom, as a leering Gregory Goyle waved his wand, and an invisible knife seemed to run down Longbottom's plump cheeks, widening the gashes already marring his features. Even with his face that looked as though the butcher had confused it with the pig, Snape thought that Longbottom was handsomer than Amycus and Goyle combined. Longbottom may have been a stuttering, clumsy fool, but at least he was brave enough to stand up for what he believed in.

"No," Longbottom ground out. "I'm not sorry."

"Ye will be when we're finished with you," sneered Alec to, as Goyle's spell ripped open Longbottom's hands, staining his palms and arms crimson.

"Gran always said—an apology was—no good—if it was dragged—out of you," Longbottom answered through clenched teeth.

"This won't be dragged out of ye." Alecto offered him a grotesque smile. "Ye'll be beggin' for forgiveness when we're done with ye." Pointing her wand at Longbottom, she shouted, "Crucio!"

Instantly, Longbottom thrashed around on the floor and emitted impossibly high screams that broke Snape's eardrums and heart at the same time. Watching Longbottom flail about on the floor like a petulant toddler, Snape wished that he had never bullied Longbottom for his abysmal performance in Potions, since doing so made him no better than the Carrows.

"Maybe we should torture ye until ye go as insane as yer worthless parents, boy," suggested Amycus, grinning at his sister's handiwork.

"It would be a nice family reunion in the mental ward at St. Mungo's for all of ye," added Alecto.

"Fuck you!" the Weasley Girl shouted. At first, Snape thought she was directing this at Vincent Crabbe, who was cutting open her face and palms with the same spell that Goyle had been employing on Longbottom a moment before. However, when her moist brown eyes fixed on the Carrows and Snape with an expression of such defiant loathing that it seared him, Snape realized that he was mistaken. "How dare you say that to him? Fuck you all!"

"I wouldn't mind fuckin' ye, my pretty, even though ye're nothin' more than a filthy blood traitor." Amycus stepped away from Longbottom and reached down to cup the Weasley Girl's breast.

At the sight, bile flooded Snape's mouth. Pedophilia should not have disgusted him so much after the horrors he had witnessed, but it did.

"Go back to fucking your sister, bastard!" The Weasley Girl slapped his hand away from her breast.

"I don't like a disobedient bitch." His cheeks flaming, Amycus loosed the Cruciatus Curse on the Weasley Girl, and she dissolved into a fit of wails and screams, her red hair flying around her like a banner as she writhed on the floor.

As her hair spasmed around on the floor, Snape found himself thinking of Lily. Lily had hair that bright, and eyes that fierce. Lily had a tongue that sharp. Lily had defended the innocent and the weak like the Weasley Girl had. Lily had suffered for her courage like the Weasley Girl and Longbottom were now.

Lily was dead, but somehow her spirit lived on, because in that moment when Weasley Girl's eyes had riveted on him, Snape had known that Lily, from wherever she was, was watching him and holding him accountable for all that he had did and all that he failed to do. Snape couldn't imagine a greater burden and a greater blessing than that knowledge.


End file.
